day 3, saturday sept 10, wedding day… d-day… and no, that’s not a pun
the wedding was scheduled to start at 11:00AM. i awoke at 7:30 and then spent the next 2.5 hours ironing my brother’s clothes, matt’s clothes, charlie’s cloths (?) before i finally got around to ironing my stuff for the day that i had wadded up in a ball. people started rolling in around 10:30 or so i took a shower, got dressed and proceded to solicit opinions on which of the 5 new ties i had bought i should actually wear.
in the end, i picked the green one. yellow roses are danielle’s favorite flower
i dont know if i mentioned this or not, but we had the wedding at my parents place in silver city, NM. this meant that we (danielle, myself, case, kathy, matt, charlie and my parents) were all getting ready together and were in various states of undress as people started showing up and coming inside. this also meant that d and i saw each other in our respective get-ups before the ceremony. oh well… so much for tradition.
people milled around, talking, taking pictures and eventually, at around 11:00, we got things underway. my mother, during her discussions with the caterer (a gay, new york jew who had migrated silver city to open a restaurant), learned from him of a particular practice that he had seen at traditional jewish weddings. he’d been to lots of weddings over the years, but the thing he liked about these jewish weddings was that, unlike most american style weddings, all four parents have a roll. both fathers escort the groom to the alter and both mothers escort the bride. that way, nobody’s left out. so, as 11:00 rolled around, the guests took their seats, and i strode down the “aisle” with both my dad and dan in tow.
water in hand, no less
followed shortly by danielle and our mothers.
that’s ok tho, because danielle forgot to take out her gum. if u could see this hi-res, u’d see that EVERY SINGLE PERSON EXCEPT THAT KID IN FRONT HAS A HUGE GRIN ON THIER FACE
another thing i prolly havent mentioned til now, is that not only did we have the wedding at my parents house, but my mom performed the ceremony. she had went online and gotten herself ordained as a minister with the universal life church, paid the $5 fee for the certificate and married us. as she stood there and went through the wonderful lines she had prepared, danielle started to tear up and her nose started running. she took the wedding band that i made from her brother who was acting as maid of honor.
notice matt never took off his sunglasses
then case gave me the ring for danielle
notice the dog lawn ornament behind my mom
then we stepped on the crystal, shouted MAZEL TOV! and the whole ceremony was over in about 10 minutes!
after that was all over, we had the obligatory receiving line and group fotos as people left and headed over to shevik and mi for the reception. here are two of my accidental favorites
my uncle jer. look at that strut.
this is a great shot, by drea i think. this is what most people miss about portratry. they never get in close enough. good job drea! =)
unbeknownst to us, our mothers had rented a horse and carriage to take us to the restaurant. danielle was dubious, but actually i thought it was pretty cool once we got started.
we… have… arrived…
see, the thing is, when i rolled into town with zee germans, i thought to myself, “wow, this place must be the crystal meth capital of new mexico.” in fact, when i was talking to one of my mom’s friends on thursday and she asked me what i thought of the town, i said as much (jokingly, naturally). of course, she and my mom asked me what made me say that and i danced uncomfortably trying to make something up that didnt come across as too offensive. then they said, “yeah, actually it’s funny u should say that, because we have a real problem with that in this town.“ to be fair, EVERY city in the US probably has a growing meth problem and in reality, it was just me being an arrogant, prejudiced, big city boy, expressing an unwarranted, cynical assessment of a former blue-collar mining town in transition. the ride to the restaurant however, changed my mind completely about the place. on the back of the carriage was a “just married” sign, almost every car that drove past honked and waved and several people shouted congratulations at us. even the skater walking down the street on the way back to the house afterwards shouted out to us. and it wasnt profanity!
i like this pic, even if it was a screw up.
the food at the reception was excellent, particularly the lemon wedding cake and the pinon coffee. we had gazpacho, various types of kebabs, couscous, salad, and bread. after the food and cake cutting, somebody decided to force matt and case to make some kind of toast or speech, which neither of them was prepared for, which made it on one hand more humorous and on the other… well, embarrassing. case rescued it though by toasting to danielle and proclaiming, “may you lose your internet connection!“
eventually, everybody left and either went back to their hotels, or went back to my parents house. and then…
ok, that’s over… now what.
well, it’s still basically only midafternoon. eventually, we went to my aunt and uncles for dinner and to try and teach zee germans about american football.
believe it or not, SMU was actually playing. considering hattiesburg had just been leveled by katrina, it was an unnexpected surprise.
and that was about it. we went home to the cottage and sat outside to enjoy the kind of thunderstorm only the southwestern desert can produce. by that time, we had no desire to hit the town, so i called simon and told him danielle wanted to consummate the marriage and well… i’m sure u can imagine the rest.
i hope d doesnt read this… i’ll get in trouble for that last comment.
